Talarico Resurfaces After Over a Week Off the Campaign Trail, Which Fueled Wild MAGA Rumors

AP Photo/Eric Gay

Texas U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico made an appearance at the second weekend of the Austin City Limits Music Festival Friday, putting an end to nearly two weeks of wild speculation about the Democrat’s whereabouts.

“James Talarico is back on the campaign trail talking to voters at Austin City Limits,” JT Ennis, spokesperson for Talarico’s campaign, said in a statement sent to Mediaite.

Texas Tribune reporter Kayla Guo confirmed Talarico’s appearance at the festival. “James Talarico at ACL after around nine days off the trail,” she wrote on X. “A Type I diabetic, Talarico said Sept. 30 he was diagnosed with the flu. Ken Paxton has ripped him for his absence from the trail over the past few days and cast doubt on the flu diagnosis.”

Talarico last held an in-person campaign event on September 29 in New York City. He appeared via Zoom the following day and told the group of viewers he had come down with an illness.

“I was starting to feel under the weather a few days ago,” he said during the meeting, per The New York Times. “Last night it got so bad that I went to the urgent care here in Dallas and I was diagnosed with the flu and so I’m running a fever and I’m at my most contagious right now. I guess I’ve been shaking too many hands on the campaign trail. And so I want to keep everybody safe and you know, if I was passing on this illness to somebody and got someone’s grandmother or someone’s baby sick, I couldn’t live with myself. So I thought the best thing to do was to put safety first and put everyone’s health first.”

Ken Paxton, the Republican Attorney General Talarico faces in the general election, has relentlessly hounded his campaign team in the days that have followed. While speaking with President Donald Trump Wednesday, Paxton led the crowd of supporters in a chant of “Where is James Talarico?”

Talarico’s campaign continued to operate as usual, and his social media accounts have remained active.

His disappearance also sparked some wild speculation from MAGA and right-wing-aligned commentators.

“My sources are telling me Talarico is in a mental health facility. His campaign has stopped actively planning events in the vital homestretch of the campaign,” Spencer Pratt wrote on X. “If this is true, this is actually a time to pray for Talarico. We should, of course, savagely mock his smug, awful campaign advisors, by all means…and while yes, of course, this would be disqualifying for Talarico’s aspirations to be a Texas Senator, we must hold empathy for anyone undergoing crisis.”

“Campaigns are brutal, and not everybody is cut out for it,” he continued. “You need very thick skin. As much as I don’t want Talarico anywhere near government, I also don’t want wish him harm, and no political office is worth having a breakdown. His awful advisors are at fault for this. They pushed him to be something he isn’t, and it didn’t work.”

Kari Lake, who is currently serving as the senior advisor to the United States Agency for Global Media, appeared to suggest Talarico had “bottom surgery.”

Fox News’ Jesse Watters also reported Talarico had “gone missing” despite communication from his campaign and others. “His last in-person event was in NY 29th, but he did a virtual event 9/30 where he was looking visibly unwell/ mentioned the flu. (it’s on C-SPAN). Missing two weeks isn’t accurate. They claim he’ll be back this weekend,” wrote CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski on X.

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